Community-Level HIV Prevention Intervention for Young Black MSM

This project will test the efficacy of a community-level intervention (an adaptation of the Mpowerment Project) in reducing sexual risk behavior and increasing testing among young Black men who have sex with men. We will implement the Black Mpowerment Project for two years in Dallas, TX. Houston, TX will be the comparison community. We will conduct cross-sectional surveys of young Black men who have sex with men before and after the intervention in both communities to determine the efficacy of the intervention in:

• Reducing the proportion and frequency of sexual behaviors that are likely to transmit HIV, including reducing the number of sex partners.
• Increasing the proportion of men who know their HIV serostatus.
• Modifying psychosocial mediating variables that may be related to HIV risk reduction.
• Changing psychosocial factors that are indicators of positive mental health and well-being.

Additionally, we will conduct process evaluations of the intervention to assess how the Black Mpowerment Project is implemented and to assess the perceptions of the project at both the individual- and community-level. We will also look for changes in sexually transmitted infection rates in both communities.